Zune: how are the projections here? What's the future Zune feature-set and ecosystem looking like?

Billions and Billions of Dollars: what's the plan for the warchest? More buy backs?

Post-results: nice?

Coverage at this point:

MSFTextrememakeover Q1 Earnings - "Phew! No huge surprises. The stronger EPS result mentioned above, seems to have been due to shifting some planned marketing expenses to Q2 and beyond."

Microsoft Monitor Microsoft Fiscal 2007, Q1 Results - always a great summary from Mr. Wilcox. On MBD: "My expectation is that most businesses planning to get Office 2007 made that decision when renewing licensing contracts earlier this year. I'm quite bearish on deployments of the new productivity suite."

Microsoft profit rises, online group posts loss from Mr. Todd Bishop. Ooo, that ends with a 10-Q quote that's a red flag being waved in-front of my lean-and-mean-bull-ringed nose: "OSB operating income decreased for the three months ended September 30, 2006 [...] Headcount-related costs increased 43%, reflecting both an increase in salaries and benefits for existing headcount and a 40% increase in headcount." Yes, please, throwing more bodies and more money at the catch-up effort is suuuure to succeed.

Not bad. Well, some of it is super-fantastic again thanks to SQL Server, Windows Server, and VS (good job on all that SP1 work, too!). Nothing really stuck in my mind from the conference call. Good numbers, a little lumpy, sounds like we're being pretty conservative regarding if things are going to go well or not for the 360, Vista, and Office. And of course, no firm dates for Vista or Office but at least we affirmed corporate availability for November and consumer availability come January. 2007.

Live Search actually lost market share in the last quarter. My guess is that MSN/Live continues to be in the red. So do MED, SMB, and XBox. SQL should be strong. All eyes are on the Vista and Office ship dates. Exchange RTM will be a small boost. Zune will be a non-event.

"OSB operating income decreased for the three months ended September 30, 2006 [...] Headcount-related costs increased 43%, reflecting both an increase in salaries and benefits for existing headcount and a 40% increase in headcount."

Well, we KNOW it didn't go into salary increases. That's a shitload of bodies to add to any project.

Jeff Raikes sent mail to his org noting that we are WAY behind in our goals for the Giving Campaign. Hey, Mr. Raikes, you are WAY behind in cost of living adjustments. I've been urging folks to avoid giving during the Giving Campaign as a way of protesting the executive largesse. Oh, still give to your chosen charities, just do it in November. Sure, it's petty and spiteful, but so is the performance review system and executive cronyism.

In the old days, we always wanted to 'beat the street' by a nickel - 5 cents a share. Not too much, not too little. Manage the Street.

I know we have *lots* of problems, but the numbers were pretty impressive - almost like old times. Eleven percent growth is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a $50B/year revenue company.

The law of large numbersI know that 11% doesn't compare to the old days, however, $5B a year in growth is an impressive feat of capitalism. I think there are only 10 or 12 companies to ever make a billion a year on software. We're on track to grow 5 of those this year. From that perspective, very impressive.

SQL Server knocked it out of the park AGAIN. 30% growth on a billion dollar business - not a bad day at the track. Server and Tools had some good acquisitions, so their future is looking pretty rosy.

Windows revenue grew at half the rate of PC shipments. Not a good thing. Part of that is the emerging market sku, but this is not a good trend. The cows need milking, and this is the big dog in the profit barn. Some good comments on the conf call about the uptake of Windows Media Center. With Vista Ultimate, hopefully we can see better revenue growth. Call the vet just in case.

Cow number 2Office - 4% growth. Biggest revenue, but trailing Windows in profit. I'm sure part of that is the Dynamics business dragging on the bottom line. Why did we buy them again? Office 2007 really is a great new product. I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't love it once they get past the initial learning curve (no matter what the marketing types say, the learning curve is non-trivial). Is it compelling enough or will people stick with "good enough"? Only time will tell, but I'm pretty sure that's why we have our sales teams ...

Google, we aren'tGive me a freakin break. Our add revenue grows 5 freakin percent?! Fire the morons and either get out of the business or bring someone in who has a clue. With the hundreds of millions of Hotmail and Messenger users, surely we can find a way to monetize that big black hole that makes that huge sucking sound?

I love the XBOXI know some of you don't, but I actually love the XBOX business and think it's a smart move for the company. I also think that Windows Mobile is a great move for the company. I also realize that we are going to have to invest to win in these markets. But come on guys, you can't expect your venture capitalist to keep funding you on $100M/quarter losses. Figure out a way to get the burn rate to something reasonable.

Back to the nickel ...We beat the street by 4 cents. But we also increased our dividend by 25%, or 2 cents / share. So we're really up 6 cents a share over last quarter. That doesn't suck.

GAAP ExceptionsPerhaps the best news was there was no non-GAAP write-off! In other words, we didn't settle a lawsuit big enough to affect EPS. That's the first time in a long, long time. I know we still have the EU fiasco, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

$30 by EOYTurns out there's a lot of resistance around our 52 week high and a ton more right around $29. I'm still sticking with my prediction that if we hit our Q1 numbers (we did), we ship Vista and Office, and an exec doesn't say something stupid, we'll hit $30 by EOY. I'm not sure we will have the volume to sustain $30, but I think we can hold it for at least a while. Will you sell / excercise at $30? I bet a lot of Softies do ...

Three-tiered MicrosoftI propose that Microsoft is 3-tiered, not 2-tiered. Obviously, there is the partner level (68+) that gets their own printing press, ink, and paper. After that, I think there is the below 64 (maybe 65) and the 64-67 (maybe 65-67). From what I've seen, the rewards are significantly different once you hit 64 or 65, but not nearly like the partner chasm. The 64+s that I know are, for the most part, content, even happy. Maybe it's a field thing?

"My question would be, what kind of company do you want MSFT to be in five years? One that pays the people who build the products, or one that lards up the executives and partners and stiffs the rest?"

1. Customer-centric - Lose the self-absorption. You don't do it at home, why do it here? Treat everyone like your family. HR - legislate this!

3. Nicer - Write a corporate behavior plan, with help from the outside, and stick to it IN EVERY DIVISION, DEPARTMENT and NOOK and CRANNY of your company. Stop the schizophrenia! Weed out the facade managers and the truly evil; you'll know who they are. Might even be you!

4. Innovative - Share ideas across company silos. Make it mandatory and easy to do. Centralize it! Reward it! Make it just as important to be an innovator in your cubicle as it is to be a programmer.

5. Talkative. Create a company blog with PROOF POSITIVE that anonymous is just that. Make Mini the moderator and reward him handsomely!

6. Kernel-friendly - Open up that code and do it now! You'll still have 90% of all PCs and a lot of happy customers and developers. The hay day is over! Share your toys.

Very good overall summary. Am not as impressed as you are with the top-line growth. The reality beneath that is that both cash cows grew at 4% - but you do point that concern out later in your post. It's also important to figure out how this new more rapid booking of Windows is helping this year's numbers and may hurt future periods - seems like a somewhat shortsighted revenue bring forward game. Agree with mostly everything else you wrote except the confidence in the Xbox business. IMO it is unlikely to ever pay back what's already been spent, so beyond pumping the topline (which admittedly may be preserving some marketcap) while tanking the bottom one, what's the point? WRT $30, if MSFT finally breaks out of the 3 year long trading range, it will likely overshoot beyond $30 to $33-34 just on technical momentum. But agree that $30 is a trigger point for many, and breaking out of the range will be a difficult feat in itself.

I've always resented the Giving Campaign and its ilk. I'll make my donations when and where I choose (and I do make them). Having it rousted out of me by people who think of their efforts as noblesse oblige just rubs in the difference between our positions. Like Bill Gates' dad going off about the virtues of estate tax...

"GAAP ExceptionsPerhaps the best news was there was no non-GAAP write-off! In other words, we didn't settle a lawsuit big enough to affect EPS. That's the first time in a long, long time. I know we still have the EU fiasco, but there is light at the end of the tunnel."

Important point that I haven't seen picked up in the media or by analysts.

Not positive, but I believe the only difference between the S plan and the C plan is the ratio of base to bonus. So corporate employees generally have higher salaries (for the same level) but smaller bonuses (with a max of either 15 or 20%).

Sales people make pretty good salarys (60% of total, versus 80/90), but make whopping bonuses, every quarter. I believe the bonuses go as high as 50% (not for the whole year, but 50% of the quarter just finished). HOWEVER, if they fail to make numbers, they actually have to pay back bonuses (it actually works where they have a negative in their bonus until they've recouped it in subseqent quarters).

Services is a little more stable. Base is higher than sales, lower than corporate with a bonus of up to 20% for UBI (utilization based) and up to 20% for CBI (which is just the review bonus).

All field employees also qualify for contests, which are different from bonuses and typically are about 5% of annual salary or less. However, you can conceivable win more than one per year.

If you want to get ahead quickly (on the dollars), the key is to move back and forth between PG and the field. Every time you move to corp, you get an adjustment in your salary (but lose some bonus opportunity), so it behooves you to move to corporate during a bad sales year. After staying at corp for a year, move back to the field, where you can get promoted more quickly, and the cycle continues.

I'm visiting Redmond at the moment from international. This morning on the way into work there were several people waving banners for Microsofties to give to the Giving Campaign.

What a stupid, infantile and petty way of drawing attention to Microsoft as the Great Giver in Seattle Society. Take a look around and Get Real. As a previous post says, people will give money to charities, when and where they want. Giving should be done to help others and most people feel good to help others out when they are less off. This competition approach to the Giving Campaign is part of the SICKNESS that exists in Microsoft. Employees with too much money pushing those with just enough.

Let's introduce a new idea and see how the competition focussed charity givers participate. Give 1% of your salary to the Charity of your choice. I can assure you that the lesser paid employees that really understand poverty, will gladly participate while the Microsoft partners suddenly stop enforcing such infantile competition amongst the various groups.

BTW: I was informed that the banner wavers where not Microsoft employees? Where they paid to provide this stupid service. Did anybody buy any of the $1000 doughnuts from the partners trying to show how generous there groups are.

What I find interesting from a culture point of view is that MS as an american company is judged by the workers by the share price much more than european companies are. Quarterly results at my company are normally not a big point to discuss between the people. Sure, Henning the CEO talks about the consequences in the employee meetings, but until then they are simply not that crucial. We are more interested in market share and product features, as well as company culture (my blog is devoted to that...).

I've been urging folks to avoid giving during the Giving Campaign as a way of protesting the executive largesse. Oh, still give to your chosen charities, just do it in November. Sure, it's petty and spiteful>>>

Yes it is. Many charities are uniquely tied into the timing of the United Way and depend on that campaign to support the holiday and winter needs they run into. Giving in November is too late to support that window.

I didn't leave Microsoft because of all the executive reasons people complain about. I left Microsoft because of people like you. You are so bitter, petty and spiteful, that you spent a good 1/3 of your time complaining about your deal and playing on the internet and then the rest of the time doing substandard work because you weren't inspired. As I look back though, I'm not the one who should have left - I really like Microsoft a lot. You should have left.

I too am greatly offended by the constant emails that I received this week, and in particular, the last few days about the Giving Campaign. I give to various charitable organizations every year and have always been impressed with the company's generous matching benefit. That being said, I find it offensive and in poor taste for management to pressure their employees to compete with other groups in the company to be bigger contributors.

Do they know who gives and who doesn't? It really makes people feel badly if they think they are one of those people who have not participated. Maybe these people have already given to their charity of choice or can't afford to give at this time. To constantly harp on people to give is wrong. In fact, our overall numbers were down this year and it could be the result of ruining the giving spirit with these overtures.

If upper management is reading this - discourage this kind of behavior. It is bad for morale and disingenuous.

Never assume that all Microsoft employees are rich. Look at the number that have to take long commutes to Campus, look at the cars in the parking lot as this is a clear sign of the haves and have nots. Not all the Microsoft employees that use public transport do it to save the environment. Car pooling is not a choice for many other employees.

I didn't leave Microsoft because of all the executive reasons people complain about. I left Microsoft because of people like you. You are so bitter, petty and spiteful, that you spent a good 1/3 of your time complaining about your deal and playing on the internet and then the rest of the time doing substandard work because you weren't inspired. As I look back though, I'm not the one who should have left - I really like Microsoft a lot. You should have left.

Actually, you'd rather like me. I think I have an awesome deal, and I also have money taken out of every paycheck to support the charities I choose the whole year round, not just in October. I love the company, and I constantly look for more ways to grow my talents, and contribute more. Trust me, as a liberal arts person, I thought I was destined for 40K, cheap apartments, and thinking that ordering pizza was an extravagance.

Unlike you, I also decided to stay because I spend a lot of time mentoring employees and directs to prosper despite the sick environment created by the VPs, the climbers, and the phonies who bitch about their deal--you know, the hotshit CS graduates who come here and don't say, "How do I write great code?", but "How do I become partner and cash in/out?"

My complaint is that VPs who spend the year rewarding themselves, working on plans to send our jobs to India, cut the resources that people need to do our jobs well, are suddenly so concerned about the needs of the poor and that we're not giving enough. Our culture is f**ked with its focus on holiday giving. Thanks for the turkey, dude. I bet I can make the leftovers last until Spring.

I live in fear that due to some career-advancing/shareholder-benefiting decision of a VP/partner, I will be on the other end of the Giving Campaign someday.

Oh, and the United Way is basically philanthropy modeled like a crime syndicate. Its corruption could give the Catholic Church a run for its money. Do yourself a favor, cut out the middleman and give directly. If you work at MSFT, you have a great deal. Give a little back. Just don't wet Raikes' beak while you do it.

All the VPs have one of their cronies (sorry, "direct reports") coordinate the giving campaign. The worst thing I have seen was this crony going to each and every room and asking "Did you give?". None of your business.

I, for one, am so disgusted by the "giving" campaign (let's just rename it the "coercion" campaign and at least be honest about it) that I just delete every email I get about it. It grows very tedious being lectured to by millionaires about how I need to be giving more money. I'd rather hand some cash to the local bum on the street than give it to most "charities," which spend ten cents on a dollar on helping people and the rest goes into the pockets of the chariteers.

Anyway, somebody along the way made mention of Office 2007 being a worthy upgrade. Well now that I've been force-fed the upgrade, and been playing with it for a while, and gotten over the learning curve, I still for the life of me don't see why anybody would PAY for this. Yeah, yeah, some of it is cool, but is it worth actual money? If I didn't get it for free, would I spend cash on it?

Word? No. I can't create custom toolbars, far as I can tell, which was my favorite feature. Some things are quicker, most things seem to take more mouse clicks than before. Overall, I'd say my productivity is slightly less with this release.

Outlook? No. The Search is positively horrendous, far as I'm concerned, and I find it a step backward. I turned it off. I like the Calibri font, and the HTML editing isn't quite as god-awful as Outlook 2003. But worth money? No.

Powerpoint? It stinks waiting 30 seconds every time to open an old format file. Otherwise, some slicker graphics, but so what? Nothing worth spending money on.

I'm not really an Excel user of any skill, so I'll pass on that. I don't use Infopath or Publisher or Access, so who knows. Groove? Yeah, sure. What a pointless application.

Overall, where's the beef, as they used to say? I keep waiting to find some amazing, compelling features that make me think "I gotta have this!" But so far, nada.

Anyway, I think Zune will be a sleeper hit, and will take sizeable share from iPod, but do we actually make money when we sell one? I hope so.

Finally, as a relatively new employee, handed a pittance of stock, I feel I have almost no vested interest in the success of Microsoft so I don't even care if Office succeeds or not. As long as I keep my job, the stock price of Microsoft is entirely immaterial to my well being.

I also work for a company (not Microsoft) that is in on the United Way extort-a-thon. The guy who described them as a crime syndicate is right on the money. Also, the management pinheads who are always behind these pushes are extraordinarily repulsive. The vulgar equation of money with caring speaks volumes (how many of these people volunteer their time in any meaningful way?). Not to mention these managers and VPs live like princes and then dun their underlings to contribute. Wow, you are so awesome Mr. I Gave A Miniscule Portion of My Undeserved Largesse to Some Nameless Charity That I Couldn't Give a Rat's Ass About. I hope I can grow up to be like you someday.

They will screw you out of a decent raise and then yelp that you need to help THEM hit THEIR "giving" targets. Makes me want to puke.

Re:giving campaign. I've not given any cash (hint..not cash) during the giving campaign and I'm made to feel like a fucking villain (but I'm on the leadership team???). Everywhere I turn...from inbox to the cafeteria, I can't escape the perpetual hounding. You what to keep reminding employees? Fine, do it your way. But for the love of god , don't try to make me feel guilty about it. And to our GM whose giving numbers are sadly the worst in our division - the fact that you decided to organize your separate group-giving event during the same time slot as the division wide giving event, thats just pathetic. That really sent a great message to your employees, which is you don't care about giving - all you care about is your own stupid numbers.

I am completely bewildered that anyone who works for MSFT would even try to justify this "I understand poverty" routine. Let's deal with the facts. shall we? You work for a fortune 500 company that pays 60% on average - that means you're not starving. And your benefit package alone...tack on at least another 16K for that. You actually claiming that having to commute and implying that makes you poor reminds me of a spoiled brat. You want poverty? Hang out with some Katrina victims or some eldery in the CD whose have to sell their homes bc they can't pay the property taxes anymore.

To even imply you are poor makes me thing you were two things: a - very young and b-a bad hire.

Come on, folks. The $1k "leadership givers" are no different than those buying $1k plates at political functions. It is about getting face time and access. Oh yeah, and helping those less fortunate than "us".Play the game. Read allegory of the cave.

Yep we are there to. Not everyone there has a wife at home taking care of the house. Not all of us make over 50K a year with families to support. Try living in poor housing conditions driving older late 80's vehicles and the money you do make just makes the payments on rent and food and keeping your family going and having very little at xmas.

Ah yes, what a weird turn of discussion. Poverty? At Microsoft, lions and tigers and bears oh my. If you wish to give without the United Way suck-a-thon, I suggest you find your nearest homeless shelter, walk in, and look around. Better yet, spend the weekend there just to get a feel for the velvet covered seating before you part with one dime. Some shelters are only open at night, so call ahead and find out what is involved. If you don't want to do it that way, call up and offer to come in a couple of nights a week to cook (food that you donate) or help in any way they might need. Do not drive by and throw your old clothes and items of no use to you any more into their driveway. The manages of the shelter see this a lot, wealthy people who think their garbage is someone else's treasure. Not so. It's still garbage.

In America, if you are ever lucky enough to spend more than a month in one, then things will start to really become clear to you. The first thing you notice is that there are a minimum of two different groups of people. The chronic homeless who do not want to work and have become accustomed to living on the streets (usually suffering from the likes of alcoholism, drug addiction with additional aspects of things like hepatitis A, teeth falling out (one tooth root canal can cost $1000) and a seriously different and dark view of the world) and the other group of those who have suffered an incredible turn of events, bad luck, or just dumb luck either way.

Both groups are filled with mentally ill people because to get there and stay there, not all your plugs are firing in the correct order. Might be your husband beat the crap out of you for years and you just walked away one day, maybe your brain is fried and you just can't seem to figure out what is going or it could be that you just can't stomach going over to labor ready and being ripped off being paid minimum wage (your take would be around $57/day, and their take would be double that) for sweeping construction sites while the Mexicans are getting $18/hour for framing houses (no exaggeration here). There is a newer group of boomers who can no longer get a job doing what they are good at. Believe it or not, a lot of older talent cannot get a job at all simply because they are over 50. And that group is getting larger and larger as the boomer generation get into retirement age.

Understand that homelessness has different tiers of seriousness and different places of existence. Besides the two group system mentioned above, there are also differentiators that separate you by where you live and what you live in. The lowest level is you have nothing, live on the street or in a tent of sorts. The next level up is you live in a homeless shelter, and the next level up from that is you live in an old trailer, usually parked in a trailer park in some place that does not notice that the trailers never move and this is no RV Park. It might be in a bad or worthless part of the state next to a railroad track, and the water is probably not drinkable and the state and federal government probably feeds back funds to the owners for providing these folks a place to live. Understand that having a trailer to live in is still homeless, because you are always at risk of being parked on the curb by events of normal people not having to want the homeless anywhere in their sight. The land gets confiscated, eviction notices are served and since most of those trailers have no way to be moved, the county hooks them up and tows them to impound, after the sheriff forcefully removes you from your property that is illegally parked on the side of the road.

Some of the places you can find homeless people near you (other than the usual urban alleys and streets): under bridges and unoccupied grounds near highways and train tracks, in old unused state and federal forest campgrounds, in thickets of places where people do not often go. They have to stay close enough to where they can find food but far enough away as to not get noticed. Know that if you give money to a bum on the street it is likely to be used for alcohol and drugs as it will never never be enough to really get off the street. Besides these people do not want you to insult them by giving them money, but they take it anyway because they have no choice. I once read about a bum who when confronted with the fact that he was a hobo and not who he thought he was, just walked out onto the freeway and was killed by a car rather than live one more day that way.

Go to it folks, and to you who do not want to give, I understand that completely. They say children have no conscience and zero empathy. The level of emptiness peaks at around 14. As you get older and experience real life, sometimes that changes sometimes it doesn't. There will always be a large percentage of people who not only don't care, they can't because they don't know how.

>> Um...you do realize that even having a car or being able to afford a bus pas puts you into middle class - right?

Hmm, we probably have different definitions of what "middle class" means. To me "middle class" means that I should be able to live comfortably (i.e. be able to pay mortgage and have money left for an occasional trip somewhere with my wife and kids) and be able to put my kids through college.

As of right now, I can not afford to buy a home within 30 minutes drive of Microsoft. And it's not like I'm a recent hire either - I have my glass prism already. When "giving" means "taking from my family", I don't think I'm in a position to give. Particularly when there's some stupid "target" percentage pushed from up above.

So, with all this talk about partners being buttered up and the programmers being starved poor - do the engineers realize that unless the partners (well at least, the better ones) were selling the product they are building, no one gets paid? Partners will undoubtedly get paid more than your top notch software engineer for a good reason too - they rake in the money with their skills. Most engineers wouldn't know their a-hole from a hole in the ground when it comes to selling or communicating with people.

Yes, partners that don't sell jack, obviously, should not be remunerated the same as partners who sell the most, but I think that's already taken care of.

So stop bitching - if Microsoft didn't know what it was doing, as "bad" as it might seem to you on the inside, they would not be the company they are today.

The poor at Microsoft. Yep we are there to. Not everyone there has a wife at home taking care of the house. Not all of us make over 50K a year with families to support. Try living in poor housing conditions driving older late 80's vehicles and the money you do make just makes the payments on rent and food and keeping your family going and having very little at xmas.

Oh, OK. How about you try this. Try living in a run down home filled with black mold and no furniture with no car and no conceiveable way of making an income, the idea of christmas for your kids a complete joke. Try depending on shelters for food, water and clothing. THAT is poor.

No wonder MSFT isn't doing so well. It's filled with people who actually believe that driving an "older 80s car" is "being poor". Unbelievable.

I too am really tired of the Giving campaign. I like how it launches shortly after we get our Sept. bonus and SA grants. It would be interesting to see the donations if they launched it earlier. For me, it doesn't matter much. I use every penny of whatever bonus I get to pay down the credit card I racked up from the previous year. I am not a spendthrift, I don't even have cable TV rather the high cost of living puts me in this uncomfortable situation.

I am completely bewildered that anyone who works for MSFT would even try to justify this "I understand poverty" routine. Let's deal with the facts. shall we? You work for a fortune 500 company that pays 60% on average - that means you're not starving. And your benefit package alone...tack on at least another 16K for that. You actually claiming that having to commute and implying that makes you poor reminds me of a spoiled brat. You want poverty? Hang out with some Katrina victims or some eldery in the CD whose have to sell their homes bc they can't pay the property taxes anymore.

To even imply you are poor makes me thing you were two things: a - very young and b-a bad hire.

You're ignorant. Employees at Microsoft may not be living in poverty by the national definition, but there are many non-core technical people at Microsoft who keep the company running and don't make the same pay grade that enables the majority to live comfortably in this area.

Mini, please please PLEASE stop the inane, off-topic garbage about who is poor and who isn't. I honestly don't know which group I loathe more--the people who claim they are poor because they don't drive a new SUV or the people who wag their fingers sanctimoniously and talk of their rich depth of knowledge about the indigent (don't lecture me unless you know my history of volunteering). But maybe the latter.

This arose out of the observation that MS is a two-tiered company. That's relevant to the general subject of Microsoft management and whether the executives are out of touch. Please stop dragging in this holier-than-thou "I once ate a TV dinner" or "I worked in a shelter ten years ago when I was in college" BS. It doesn't belong and 99% of it is totally idiotic and embarrassing to read.

Please bear in mind that basically what you're seeing is the dregs of MS, if they're MS employees at all. A lot of serious and good discussion is going on in the new internal blog and only the topics too sensitive to risk posting within MS remain here.

But I do see that the participation numbers in the Giving campaign is a relevant parameter to see how happy, satisfied, and secure employees feel. An sad, unsatisfied, and uncertain heart is less likely to contribute than an happy, satisified, and secure heart.

Participating in a good cause is never a function of poor or rich. The extent is. So as long as we only see the number of people (meaningfully) participated and not really how much money each has contributed the topic of rich vs poor is irrelevant.

By and large, my personal feeling is that Microsofties as group have shown a much higher percentage of participation than employees at most other tech-companies.

A lot of serious and good discussion is going on in the new internal blog and only the topics too sensitive to risk posting within MS remain here.

As a field based employee who can only reach the internal blog when on VPN, I'd have to say that I'm just a bit more than disappointed by it. We have enough things published externally that still require your domain credentials (and others that also add the additional requirement of your smart card) that it wouldn't be difficult to add this blog to the list of things published with smart card requirements via ISA 2006.

Conspiracy theories about how "anonymous" it really is or not aside, I just want to connect w/o having to be on VPN...IS THAT TO MUCH TO ASK?????

If that system is good enough for me to do Expense Reports, why not for reading/posting to Lisa's blog?

I work for a major UW booster. We have 1/5 the employees of Microsoft and raised 1/3 the amount of money. Our directors get personally involved the regional organization, and officer-level donations are measured and announced before the general staff. Accountability begins at the top.

Personally I don't support the United Way because (1) the middleman issue--I want to get INVOLVED not just outsource my conscience--and (2) specific concerns about the politicization of the United way.

Poor at Microsoft? Sure, everyone's different. Uncovered medical expenses (e.g. a sick sibling or parent), gambling addiction, other personal issues, bad investments. There are many ways to be poor while having adequate income, and not all are the individual's fault.

Mini, I know you are not posting the Richie Rich vs Raggedy Anne posts any more, but I would like to respond briefly to the quote below. I am the one who posted the TLDR thing about the homeless experience.

>>"I honestly don't know which group I loathe more--the people who claim they are poor because they don't drive a new SUV or the people who wag their fingers sanctimoniously and talk of their rich depth of knowledge about the indigent (don't lecture me unless you know my history of volunteering). But maybe the latter."

I only posted that because I was growing a little weary about all the whining going on in some of the posts about not having enough.

BTW, what I wrote, I actually experienced as a homeless person and not as a college student and it was just a couple of years ago not 20 years, and it was in LA, and yes, I am like you, a techie with a professional degreed background in a technology field. And what I wrote wasn't even a surface scratch of what really goes on--that is a book maybe, and yes I'm in my fifties.

If Softies are embarrassed, you shouldn't be, I'm not. Its purpose here was just to clear the decks a little about a really inane topic. Maybe it makes you uncomfortable, and for that I apologize, God knows its a no (desire to) repeat experience. Call this my 'Meet John Doe' moment (referencing an old Frank Capra film with the same title, same subject).

Disclaimer

These are sole individual personal points-of-view and the posts and comments by the participants in no way represent the official point-of-view of Microsoft or any other organization. This is a discussion to foster debate and by no means an enactment of policy-violation. These posts are provided "as-is" with no warranties and confer no rights. So chill. And think.